10 Reasons Why Retainers Work Better for the Agency and the Client

An excerpt from a post on the Wistia blog:

Over the last year, my business changed dramatically – I shifted away from one-off projects and began focusing on longer-term contracts. With one-off engagements, I was always pitching clients and seeking out the next shoot. Building pitch decks and negotiating contracts ate up a lot of my time. It also meant that I ended up building shallow relationships with clients.

These shallow relationships didn’t give me a lot of creative freedom. And because they were centered around individual projects, there weren’t opportunities to grow the relationships and do better, more effective work over time. I wasn’t happy, and my clients weren’t getting the full value of my expertise.

So I changed how I worked. Instead of being a video producer, I positioned myself as a strategic partner. This is very different from the traditional production business model. By building long-term contracts, I had the opportunity to become a trusted advisor and not simply a contractor.